Treasure Cave
by Itban Fuyu
Summary: Teenage Astrid is strolling down Berk's forest to rest and is chased down, finding refuge in a cave. There, she found a wonderful treasure like no else. It was way more precious than anything she could have imagined; a lesson she'd never forget. One-shot.


**Summary: Teenage Astrid is strolling down Berk's forest to rest and is chased down, finding refugee in a cave. There, she found a wonderful treasure like no else. It was way more precious than anything she could have imagined; a lesson she'd never forget. **

**Requested by crafordbrian17. **

**And before we begin, who is excited for the short HTTYD movie "Homecoming", set to realease in December? I'm dying for it! Hehehe**

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_The Treasure Cave_

Astrid was walking down the forest of Berk for quite a while. She held her stomach underneath the blue shirt; it felt two or three times bigger than usual, she knew she shouldn't have eaten that much, but there was just so much good food at the table and it was so much better than to pay attention at another twin discussion…

Tired of walking, she sat down under a tree's shade. She sighed heavily and let her eyelids shut. She just needed to rest for a while. A branch broke a few meters away from her and Astrid opened her eyes in alert.

The forest was quiet again, until the sound of ruffling feathers reached her ears. There was something coming closer to her.

"Ruff, Tuff?" No answer. "Snotlout, if you're trying to prank me, I swear you'll regret it…" Still no sound.

She put her a hand on her hips. Maybe it was only a yak… A growl came from behind some bushes, revealing a bear.

She clenched her axe and would not back down. The bear was angry and charged at her. Astrid defended herself, but the bear easily threw her axe away with its strength.

With no other choice, she ran for he life, pushing away the thoughts of how weird was that bear was behaving.

She ran as fast as she could, searching for a way to get rid of the chasing angry animal. She couldn't come back to the village, it was too far away and it'd caught her before then. She tried calling for Stormfly, or Hiccup and Toothless… Heck, she'd even be thankful if Snotlout and Hookfang took her out of there.

Rocks came into view and there was a hole in it, an entrance for a cave. She jumped through, but got stuck on the way. She felt as if she couldn't fit anywhere.

"Oh, why did I have to burry my sorrow with so much food?" She forced herself inside, cursing. Her stomach moved in response as if it had a life of its own underneath her skin that was aware of her restlessness.

The bear couldn't get in through the narrow entrance and stuck its paw, trying to catch anything. With shaky legs, Astrid stood up and walked down the cave, searching for a way out.

Her legs ached carrying her for so long as she walked down the cave for what seemed for forever.

The narrow path she was going through had suddenly opened to big cave she could only see because of the huge amount of jewelry that had some sort of unnatural glow. The treasure was all over the place and there were many kinds of it: bracelets, necklaces, rings, and earrings of all colors and shapes.

"Wow! Berk will love to know about it!"

Distracted looking at the treasure, it took her a while to see a strange 6 inch girl behind a pile of jewelry. She was like a fairy straight from the tales her mother used to tell her when she was a kid. Astrid was surprised, but kept silent, watching her from behind and admiring her reddish brown hair at the light of the glow-y treasures.

The girl moved her hands in the air in a circular way; sparkles appeared in a mini-hurricane. It started to take the form of a golden circle. Astrid soon identified it as a ring as its shape became more solid with a ruby red stone in it. When she was done, the girl grabbed the ring and put it on a pile.

She put her hands on her hips and turned around, that was when Astrid saw the proud smile on her face, although it quickly vanished, giving place to a shocked expression.

"Who are you?" The little girl asked, her sapphire eyes blinking in confusion.

"My name is Astrid. I'm sorry if I disturbed you, but I was running from a bear and ended up here…" The Berkian quickly explained. "So, who are you? What are you doing here?"

The girl hesitated for a moment, but answered. "I'm West Wind and I'm working."

"Creating jewelry? How do you do that?" She looked around at the glowing treasure.

"I don't know, I just do that since I was conceived."

"Would you mind if I took some back to my village?"

"No, you can't do that!" She waved her arms in a negative way. Astrid was taken aback.

"Why not? You just make these stuff, it's not like you'd miss it."

"I can't because I'm gonna use them. Every single one of them. They're very important for my job."

"I don't understand, I thought creating these was your job."

"It's part of it. The other part I'll need to use all of these." She gestured at the filled up cave.

A million possibilities of trade ran through Astrid's mind, but since they all didn't seem to fit in such an extraordinary situation, she asked. "For what?"

"To light up the sky."

"What?"

She sighed. "It's better if I show you."

West walked through the path between piles of treasures to a hole in the wall. It was like a door to another section of the cave. Astrid followed her, but stopped at the entrance just as big as the first one, when she was running from the bear.

"Don't you have a bigger path?"

"Come on, it can't be that hard to go through." The girl put her hands on her hips.

"Maybe not for you, you're as tall as a baby… actually, not even that much."

West giggled. "Alright then. I'll help you."

And with that, Astrid crawled to the other room and the girl helped pushing her until both had crossed the hole.

The other room was filled with many candles everywhere and there was even a bed for West and a small drawer, but what caught Astrid's attention was the thing in the middle of the room. It looked like one of Hiccup's contraptions, but more sophisticated.

It was an iron box, bigger than Astrid's own drawer and it had two exit points that looked like the Thunderears they used to listen to things in the distance. One of them was short and the other was very long, pointing to a hole in the ceiling.

West pointed to the opening straight to the sky that was getting dark, the sun had probably just set and her friends were probably looking for her.

"Do you see any stars?" She asked. Astrid shook her head. "That's because they can't appear yet. It'll only happen with my job."

"What do you mean?"

West smiled and ran to the treasure room to grab some jewelry. She quickly threw it inside the smaller Thunderear-like opening. She repeated the procedure a few times and then pressed a button at the top of the box that Astrid hadn't even noticed before.

"This is my starry-night machine." The box began to tremble as if suddenly awaken. From the long exit, a glowing dust started to ascend to the sky and soon enough, some stars began to shine in the darkness.

Astrid's mouth dropped, that just couldn't be real!

West went back to the treasure room and brought more fuel to the machine. After repeating it a few times, she stopped to admire the sky. Each second the machine worked, more stars appeared in the navy sky.

"So…"Astrid gulped. "Are going to turn into stars? And you do this every night?"

"Yep! This is my job: to light up the sky for those who need guidance, for those who want to admire it and for those who have an aching heart. That's why I need all the jewelry and why I can never stop it."

Astrid smiled and looked up. She was already feeling quite hopeful seeing so many starts blinking at her.

A cold gentle breeze brushed against her soft skin and Astrid trembled. She closed her eyes and her eyelashes heavy, rubbing them so she could open them again.

"Good morning, Milady."

Astrid opened her eyes, she was back on her bed and Hiccup was right in front of her. His sleepy eyes were tired, yet the love within them never went away, not even for a second, even after almost three years of marriage. To smile was inevitable.

"Hey, Babe. Morning."

He leaned closer and his sleepy-smiley lips touched hers in a brief kiss. With lazy moves, Hiccup sat up on the bed and stretched his arms.

"Slept well?" He turned to face her as she sat up, too.

"I guess so… I had a strange dream." She touched her swollen belly; in about two months they'd be parents of their first-born child.

"How, so?"

"I was chased by a bear to a cave and there I found a girl… She was small, like some sort of fairy. She was pretty and she had blue eyes like mine and her hair was kinda like yours."

He laughed and shrugged. "Who knows, maybe it's our daughter visiting us."

"What? We can't even know if it's a boy or a girl."

"I know, I'm just kidding. It's because I was reminded of my dad telling me as a kid that my mom had dreamed of a skinny, green-eyed boy with auburn hair that was like a mix of hers and dad's."

She laughed and leaned on him, resting her head on his shoulder. She wondered for a moment, looking down at her hand so close to her unborn child, the baby moved as if to make sure of its existence there.

"You know… maybe you could be right."

"What? I was joking, Astrid…" He planted a kiss on the top of her head.

"But I'm not." She distanced her self enough to look him in the eye. "I can't explain it, but I really felt something strange, something deep with this girl… Like she could mean the world to me."

"Alright, then. If you believe that, I believe in you." He reached for her hand.

"And are you okay if it's a girl? I mean, it'd be the first girl first-born child of the chief in a very long time."

"The only thing that'd happen if she's a girl is that you won't be the only most important woman in my life anymore." He chuckled. "And well, I was the first one who changed the dragon-killing village into a dragon-loving village, being the father to the first-born girl in I don't know how long would only add as reason to people never forgetting me, don't you think?"

"Watch out for your ego, Chief." A sly smile graced her lips.

He laughed then gave her one last kiss before he moved away. He put on his prosthesis and stood up to get ready for the day.

As the dream kept playing in her head, Astrid kept thinking of the girl. She opened her mouth a bit, but closed it; she sighed and then finally let the words flow.

"Zephyr."

"What?" He turned to face her as he put a new shirt on.

"Zephyr. That will be her name." She shrugged. "I mean, if you'd want to, too, of course."

"Zephyr…" he tried it out. "I liked the sound of that. Better than what I would come up with, I guess. It means West Winds, right? And why this name all of a sudden?"

"Well, you know, legend says it's the most favorable wind. And it fit the girl in my dream and the girl who is the daughter of the people that had flown on dragons."

"Alright then. And if it's a boy, it'd fit him, too."

Astrid glared at him playfully. "Whatever happens to 'I believe you, milady'?"

"I'm just exploring the possibilities." He extended a hand to her. "Anyway, let's get going. We have many duties to fulfill, Milady."

Astrid smiled again at her husband, resisting the urge to take his hands and pull him back to bed; and even though she didn't need any help, she accepted his thoughtful gesture to start out the day.

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**So this is it! I hope you all liked this one-shot requested by crafordbrian17. **

**I rarely end up accepting requests; I only got this one because it was short and because I liked the symbolism we came up with. Speaking of which, here are some curiosities: **

**\- Zephyr's name is actually a boy's name (according to the site behind the name, that's why Hiccup said it) and it means West Wind, which on a previous research I made for another fic, I found out that was considered the most favorable of the four winds in a European myth. **

**\- Since Astrid is pregnant in this story, her dream reflected that with little hints, like when her belly felt like there was life in it and in the fact that she was feeling her body strangely bigger and not used to it. **

**\- West is supposed to be Zephyr as if she was visiting her mom in spirit before she was born and I took the idea of her creating the jewels as a symbol that she'd become like a treasure for her parents and this treasure between people we love is turned to the stars in the sky, especially when a loved one dies (detail inspired by The Lion King). Though, of course, you can interpret it in anyway you'd like. **

**Please tell me your thoughts on this story down below; I'd love to know your thoughts on it! :D **

**Questions I'd love to know if you review: Did you notice it was a dream before Astrid woke up? At what point? **


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